Gígja Svavarsdóttr, headmaster ofTungumálaskólinn Skoli.eu and director of The Tin CanFactory
She graduated from the Egilsstaðir college in 1984 and studiedphilosophy, Icelandic and anthropology at the University of Iceland. From2000-2008 she lived in Monza (Milano), Italy, and is currently living inReykjavík, Iceland. Gígja has 23 years of experience workingas a teacher of the Icelandic language, thereof 14 years on the internet.For the major part of that period she worked for the Námsflokkar inReykjavík, her major subject being teaching and experimentalteaching as well as translating of study material and development of newmaterial. Among other things she took part in the Lingua project Bragi, thedevelopment of study material on the internet ready to print. That projectwas a collaboration between the Námsflokkar and the HumboldtUniversity of Berlin. She has also thought courses in Icelandic forErasmus students that come to Iceland to study at the University ofIceland and serveral other schools.
Online experience: Teaching anddevelopment of study material in Icelandic as a foreign language foradults on Vefskoli.is. Her work began at the Námsflokkar where theadding of online studying was seen as a necessity. After theNámsflokkar were shut down she continued her work independently onVefskoli.is. From 2004-07 she was the co-founder of the School of Icelandic on the internet for Icelandicchildren living abroad where she kept on her work as teacher and author ofstudy material. During that period she supervised students at the KHÍ (the Icelandic School of Education) whowere given the possibility to take part of their studies at the School ofIcelandic for kids living abroad.
From 2007 one of the founders of Tungumálaskólinn and itsmain teacher of Icelandic as a foreign language. The school is bothon-line and in a classroom since 2008, during the crisis in Iceland. The Language School Skoli.eu started in a regular living-room and then gota regular appartment as housing - and now in Borgartún 1 atReykjavík and students are around 800 this year. The mainstudies at the school is Icelandic as a foreign language, but we have alsostarted English, Spanish and Italian dealing with the same methods as forthe teaching Icelandic.
Homepage: www.thetincanfactory.eu
E-mail: gigja@skoli.eu